[Connect] Disable automatic switching between devices

[HidalgoF]

Spotify Connect is great but the automatic switching is not for everyone.

Please allow us to disable automatic switching between devices. I understand Spotify doesn't like user to play in more than one device and I am happy with that, but the application shouldn't switch devices if the user does not want to do this. It clearly creates frustration amongst users.

In my particular case I work from home listening to music on my computer. I find really annoying when I plug my headphones in my phone to take a call and suddenly the music starts playing in my headphones.

This is what happens step by step:

• Spotify is in my mobile running in the back.
• Spotify is playing in my computer.
• My phone rings.
• I take the call at the same time that I get my headphones on me.
• I listed to a combination of my client/colleague and the music that I was playing in my computer, usually very loudly.
• I stop the music.
• I comment with my client/colleague how bad is Spotify.
• I finish my call.
• I go to my computer, change the playing device on Spotify to my computer and play again.
• I do this a couple of times until I get fed up of Spotify and I play music from somewhere else.

This problem has been already described here: LINK  but it has incorrectly tagged as repeated (the problems and solutions suggested are different).

[benam1]

I'm currently experiencing the same issue. A automatic device change toggle in the settings would be great to see.

[MrGlenn]

To add insult to injury, instead of improving this behaviour, it is actually becoming worse for me over time.

Recently Spotify for Android has started forcing playback through my phone whenever I open the app, even without having a bluetooth headset connected.

Dear Spotify, not a single soul that is listening to music through external speakers wants their phone to automatically take over playback unprompted just by opening your App.

Your stance on this issue is astounding and infuriating.

[supahz1016]

"I'm afraid it's not possible to turn this off at the moment,"

WHY? People I've been complaining about this for years and nothing has been done. Earlier you said you're ready always looking for ways to improve the experience...well surely you could give us the option in settings to disable auto switching, instead of deciding that you know what's better for us than we the users want.

I am constantly having to fix this issue when I'm listening to music on one device while exercising, then answering the phone on another device and connecting my Bluetooth headphones. So much fun to suddenly have music blaring in my ears while I'm trying to answer my phone. Super frustrating that you aren't giving us a simple option to stop it. 

[MsRenay]

Oh my gosh how old is this post. This is very annoying because I have my device set to run Spotify from my Amazon Echo device at home when I'm at work. But half of the time it defaults back to my mobile phone which is annoying because I only wanted to play on the device that I have it playing on at that moment which is my Amazon Alexa device not my mobile phone. I was looking for a feature to disconnect my mobile phone and leave the other devices but I didn't see that. This random switching back and forth happens whether I'm at home and all my devices on Wi-Fi along with my phone or when I'm at work and my phone is on 4G. It wouldn't be as annoying if it actually kept playing but when it switches most of the time it stops playback altogether and I'm trying to support one of my favorite artists by streaming their content.

 

[peardragon]

When playing music on laptop Spotify often stops playing on laptop and starts playing on my phone even though I'm not doing anything in the app. This often happens when a bluetooth devices is connected to the phone, or I wake up the phone from stand by, or open a Spotify app on it, but sometimes this happens completely randomly. Normally, I can't even switch playing from the laptop to the phone using the Spotify PC application since it can't detect Spotify running on the phone, but whenever something wakes up the mobile Spotify application, it immediately switches device to itself. Restricting Spotify from running in the background in Android settings solves the problem, but it makes it impossible to listen to music on the phone while doing something else.

Could you make it so that the device Spotify plays on (PC or phone) does not change automatically without user input. 

Plan

Premium

Device

Pixel 8

Operating System

Android 15

[big_malk]

Sometimes when I press play on my laptop it plays on my phone, or vice versa. This seems more like a bug than a feature - I can't think why this would be useful?

It would also be great if each device could keep it's own status. E.g. when I listen to a podcast on my phone the playlist I had open on my laptop is lost, and vice versa. I can't see how this might be useful to some people - but for me, it's just annoying. Podcasts on phone, music on laptop.

[DonDomingo]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

Spotify moves from playing on desktop to cell by its own, on random occasions. My cell sometimes starts playing the music when it switches, sometimes it doesn't. But it still shows it's playing on cell instead of desktop when it did switch.

When my music switches to my cell and I switch it back, it turns on a song from an hour ago and it will replay all the same songs...

[TBRUDY]

I have the Windows app on my laptop and can open and play in the laptop. However without even touching my phone, the phone app also opens and runs silently, but in unison with the computer. If I get a call, my BT earpiece for the phone plays the music when I answer. How can I paly on and inside the computer and not have the phone app open also by itself?

[brianchapman]

When listening to Spotify on my laptop (Mac) it switches to my phone (android) when changing songs, which is embarrassing as I'm listening via headphones on the Mac and the phone plays via the speakers for everyone to hear. This doesn't always happen but it has happened often enough to be annoying.

I wouldn't expect this behavior EVER. Nor would I expect many if any people to want this to happen. I've seen various versions of this issue on this forum dated several years back (all locked hince a new post) but it does not appear to be fixed.

I was able to "fix" this by removing the Spotify app from memory on my phone. This really isn't a "fix" as I shouldn't ever have to do anything to avoid this situation.

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Pixel 8

Operating System

Android

[phpman]

Can you please move this topic to https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Connect-Disable-automatic-switching-between-devices/m-p/693...

[JonnoWasTaken]

I'm also having this issue when listening to Spotify on Windows or in my car (via Android Automotive). If the Spotify app is running in the background on my Pixel 7 it'll randomly steal playback and the only way to stop it is to kill the app, which I can't safely do while driving.

The issue is especially prevalent when listening to Spotify in my car, which I assume is because

Spotify is attempting to play via the Bluetooth connection between my phone and car, but the car won't play audio via Bluetooth unless I switch to the Bluetooth app, so the music just stops.

[GazArnold10]

Wow, extremely disappointed to see that this doesn’t have a fix. My issue is with my car, I listen to audiobooks and music via USB in my car as I find it much easier when I’m driving. However I often use Spotify to connect to devices in the house. Now I have an issue where most times (but strangely not every time) I start up my car the media switches from USB to Spotify on my phone automatically, and I can’t see any way to prevent it, I need my phone linked to the car for calls of course, and I don’t want to remove Spotify completely as I do use it, SO ANNOYING!  I feel like I’ve got no realistic workaround to this issue, which is made even more annoying by the fact that when the input changes in the car it loses its position in the media and I have to navigate through folders to get back where I was every time 😡 really annoying

[frozencardoor]

I'm having the same issue. While listening to music on my Macbook Pro it will automatically switch to my phone, seemingly at random. It's been happening more and more frequently the past few months. I often times have Bluetooth headphones connected to both laptop and phone, but it's also happening when I turn Bluetooth off on my phone. I cannot think of a good UX reason why this is happening — I want to manually select which device I want to play music on, or be able to turn auto-switching OFF in settings.

Is there a solve for this yet? I've seen a lot of people with the same issue.

Plan

Premium Individual

Country

United States

Device

Pixel 9, Macbook Pro 2021

Operating System

Android 15,  Sonoma 14.4

*This exact problem happened while writing this post. Super frustrating.

[65dldde-fr_zg]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 14 to MacBook Air M3 2024

Operating System

macOS Sequoia

My Question or Issue

Just for a brief background: I have my AirPods connected to my iPhone listening to music and I wanted to switch over to my MacBook, which has my wired headphones plugged into. I knew that I had to open Connect to a Device from either device and select my computer. When doing so, my music stops then reconnects to my phone and continues playing through my AirPods when I wanted it going through my headphones from the computer. I've done this about 3 times to make sure it wasn't a minor, one-time glitch but I still had issues: my music just stayed paused on the second and third time. To fix this and go on with my day, I put my AirPods back in my case and switched it over one last time. I believe it glitched because my AirPods were forcing itself to connect back to my phone from my computer (through the Apple ecosystem) when I press play even though it was supposed to be playing only on my computer. 

[MihailY]

Hey @65dldde-fr_zg,

Thanks for reaching out.

To investigate this further, can you try the following:

• See if this happens when the wired headphones are not plugged in the MacBook.
• Close the desktop app and instead switch the playback to the web player.
• Clean reinstall the app on both devices using this guide. As a heads up, you'll need to re-download any playlists you've saved for offline listening.

If the issue persists after reinstalling, send us the exact OS versions and Spotify versions of both devices so we can report this to our tech team.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[Mmaxwell7281]

I've recently starting having this! Really annoying. I open spotify on my phone to change the song Alexa is playing then it starts playing from my phone!

[slamhound]

I was very sad when I discovered that revoking the Spotify Bluetooth (nearby devices) permision on my Samsung (workaround) no longer fixes this issue. I had some 2 years of uninterrupted music casting but now I'm back to music playing in my headset during calls and interruptions when I connect whatnot to a device with Spotify installed.

Anyone come up with a new workaround? 

[Terabor]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

OnePlus Nord 4 and Windows PC (Spotify app)

Operating System

Windows 10 and Android 15

My Problem is, that when I play music and switch spotify output from my phone (with connected headphones) to my pc and afterwards turn of my headphones, spotify then automatically switches back to my phone and blasts the music through it's internal speakers.

This happened to me with different headphones and Smartphones

[fersarr1]

I just started having the same issues as brianchapman: I'm listening on my mac in the office, open spotify on Android for whatever reason and the music switches to the phone (bluetooth is OFF and my earbuds are connected to the mac) so the music starts blasting in the office. Spotify really needs to improve how it handles feedback, this is just one of the many issues I've reported over the years and they all seem to always stay broken.

[65dldde-fr_zg]

Sorry for the wait. So I did everything you said I should try. Here is what happened:

1. Unplugged wired headphones: I did this with only my AirPods connected and the results were the same when I switched from my iPhone to MacBook. Although, I should point out that it wasn't as bad as before with the headphones. The music switched over and suddenly stopped after a second to ask me to reconnect my AirPods to the MacBook from my iPhone. However, instead of giving me extra trouble, I clicked on the "Reconnect" button then pressed play on my Spotify app and it worked well after that.

2. Using the web player instead: The same issue, even without the headphones. 

3. I am now about to reinstall Spotify for both iPhone and MacBook.